The Conspiracy of "Cool"

What makes a person "cool"? We don't mean physical temperature -- instead, we're asking about the swag, the aura, the almost indescribable vibe with a thousand names across time and culture. For most of human history, the concept of what we call "cool" has been a mystery -- perhaps, that is, until now. In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore the strange story of how science may have finally cracked the code on coolness. Could you use this knowledge to make yourself cooler? More importantly... is it cool to want to?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Faget. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. What's cooler than being cool? Nothing?
Ice cold?

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Okay, I also accepted ice cold?

Speaker 3 (00:49):
All right, dw Fellas, what's a shout out to outcast
and Andrea? Obviously, since we are based in the fair
metropolis of Atlanta. What's the time you, guys felt cool?
Not physical temperature wise sixty nine nice, but more like
intriguing suave. I mean dripped, oh day, every day, baby
like that? Not the kiss. That's not the kiss. I

(01:10):
do my best.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
It is weirdly uncomfortably important to me to seem cool,
and I think I often fail at that, So maybe
I need a new thing.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Guys, According to all the writings, the most uncool thing,
literally do is consider yourself to be.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Cool exactly, if I'm not mistaken. There was a Simpsons
episode that dealt with this, and I think it was
determined that it's one of those if you have to
ask things to point out something that Dylan set off
my But I think Marge gave the example of the
cool people know if they're cool or that was the
question that was posed, right right.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
It's It's funny because in the modern parlance, the nature
of coolness can be a bit like the Dow or z.
You know, for some folks it might seem effortless. For
others trying to be cool or even care worrying about
being cool in the first place, are inherently uncool. It's
very much like what's the old Dow quote. When I

(02:07):
let go of what I am, I become what I
might be.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Ooh, it's about potential. I guess I'll tell you who
you know invented cool technically, Miles Davis jazz musicians in
an album called The Birth of Cool, which yeah, I
mean one could argue that cool definitely surrounded the idea
of being a jazz musician.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
The Hepcats and.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
All that I heard it was Lester Young.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
I'm excited to talk about the history as well. But yeah,
because modern cool is a little bit different, kidding, drastically
different from the original idea of cool, and it's kind
of difficult to define, right, There's something aspirational at ephemeral
about coolness. For most of history, we've thought of the
idea of coolness as this subjective thing. But now, as

(02:54):
we alluded to in a previous Strange News conversation, I
think modern science claims to solved the conundrum, or has it.
It Sure would be cool if it did, but would
it even know?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, it were, and why would it matter to us?
What is or isn't cool? And how could that be
weaponized against you?

Speaker 3 (03:15):
It doesn't. I don't care. I'm above it, h're. We
also use the word cool pretty often in this episode,
which might be a two parter, so spoiler folks, you
might run into some semantic satiation.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
But we're gonna get to that too, I'm sure, but
not to mention that the word cool, just as like
in its use, is often like the least remarkable thing possible,
Like that's cool, Okay, sure?

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Why not? Sure would be cool if it did. Here
are the facts. Since the dawn of civilization, people have
yearned to be cool. Like we mentioned at the top,
the specifics of what makes a person, place, or thing
considered cool in modern parlants. It's changed over time, but

(04:01):
I think most of us agree it's one of those
you know it when you see it types of phenomenon.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yeah, I mean back in the day, you know, being
cool often meant that you're not a nark and that
you're not going to like report someone's illegal activities to
the fuzz.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah. And in previous iterations being cool or like the
earliest writing of coolness as a sociological or personality concept,
it dwelt on the on the idea of emotional restraint.
It wasn't so much about swagger as it was being
you know, civil but contained, not easily shake it, keep cool,

(04:40):
keep your cool exactly. And this it's interesting because it
goes back to this old idea of linking temperature and emotion.
And that's why we still sometimes say someone is being
told to us in English, you know, if someone seems
dismissive or they're purposely ignoring you, or they're you know,
like going going out of the way to not laugh

(05:02):
at your jokes, that's being cold.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
Well, even the term like the he cooled to her,
you know what I mean? Yeah, over time you kind
of become disinterested or aloof towards.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Someone orf or we've all seen when someone comes in hot.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Not cool, someone's heated up. Yeah. This so this concept
evolved and it changed once again as we were talking
about a little bit at the top. What we call
modern cool originates back in the jazz eras right the
thirties the forties, where there were these legendary musicians that

(05:42):
we mentioned who had this concept, this persona this iconic
aesthetic of coolness, and later historians will argue that there
are strong potential roots in coolness or emotional restraint as
a survival mechanism during chattel slavery.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Oh well, let's talk about the guy that coined that's cool,
Lester Young. This is a jazz musician in the nineteen forties.
There is a history, a tradition of black singers and
performers who would go on stage and there was an
expectation of and almost I don't know how to describe

(06:19):
it as societal pressure to smile on stage as as
a person of color, to look non threatening when you're
on stage, and to perform your music, and Lester went
on stage. He would wear sunglasses in the club at night,
and he would not he refused to smile at the audience.
He would get up there, he would play his badass

(06:41):
music and just be stoic, almost in that you are here,
you are here experiencing my art, and I don't have
to do the crap that you want me to do
to be able to do this. And that goes back
right as you're saying, ben to all of the pressures
and the stuff from chattel slavery.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, it's also important to distinguish here that Lester Young
at this point is not being hostile. He's not being rude.
He's being confident and skilled and aloof he has autonomy,
and that's one of the big factors we're going to
talk about.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
But it's got a purpose, right. It's defiance ultimately, that's
what that is.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
And confidence exuding confidence.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yeah, I was saying confidence. But autonomy is not necessarily hostility.
You could say it's a quiet defiance because he's not
out there, you know, burning flags or something, but he's
refusing to play the game or comply to the pressures
put upon him by a predatory social dynamic.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
Well, and I'm looking forward to getting around to kind
of the current state of cool because it requires a
discussion of things like cringe, which I very much look
forward to getting y'all's take.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
On and anti cool right precisely so exhibit a being
stuff like crocs for an innocuous example. One important thing
that well, I think if we take nothing away from
this conversation, we should take this away. Corporations have weaponized
cool or the concept of it, to great and damaging advantage.

(08:14):
Of course, if you're most people, you want the people
you encountered to like you. You want them to respect you,
and being cool has become an umbrella term to describe
that existence or that perception. And if we want to
make things more interesting, we can consider that every conceivable demographic,
every imaginable social group or industry or community from cradle

(08:38):
to the grave, has their own internal definitions of coolness.
Like one example would be when we were in the
Middle East earlier and we learned that certain styles of
gutra or cafea head coverings, right, they can be indicative
of origin or social identification, and there are some ways

(08:58):
to style them that are like you were cooler style.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
I mean, if you're Billy Madison, p and pants is cool, right,
I'm surprised, I mean, Miles Davis, he says, you know,
back around to that.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
There we go. This shows us there are countless examples.
Your friend group or separately, your coworker community all have
their own versions of what is or is not considered cool.
And these ideas don't the credit doesn't the credit doesn't transfer,
These ideas don't translate to other social groups. We were
talking off Mike about something that is so common. If

(09:35):
you have children, you might recognize that some stuff that
seems amazing to your kids might seem silly and incomprehensible
to your peers, or indeed to children in other cultures,
which is baffling to me, because you know, when corporations
sell the hot Christmas toy or whatever in the United States,
it's advertised as universally cool. Thou shalt get the Elmo right.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
Well, you know, I mean, it's it's funny. Though the
whole corporatization of cool often comes with, over time, a
backlash as well, Yes, one hundred percent, and we can
encounter that backlash and microposm as well hit we so
for you now, listen stuff you think is cool, whether
that's a genre of music, a type of film, a
mode of dress.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
I think most people can admit that's just as subjective
as any other aesthetic or opinion. The clothing that the
mods wore back in the day was not objectively the
last word on clothing. It was just a way for
that community to connect, right, to recognize each other.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
The mods like.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
The hepcats, you know, like the mods being I think
more of a sixties is kind of like a biker biker,
but like sporty biker type cats.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Got it. Although I do like the idea of a
secret cabal of moderators who have their own fashion guidelines,
that's oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
Moderators are inherently ephemeral. I don't think of them having
any physical presence whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
I guess it depends on the mode of your mod.
And we don't like to yuck other people's yums, as
our pal Chuck was wont to say, but we can
admit that as people move through their lives, their ideas,
your idea of what cool means, what makes something cool
evolves and it's defined by your current and past social

(11:30):
groups and what they prize and what you have learned
from them, and how it has taught you to agree
with or disagree with those social dynamics. You know, Like, look,
let's be honest, it's birthday month as we're recording it.
It's August fourth, twenty twenty five. And I think it's

(11:50):
fair to say, my guys, that every one of us
has encountered something we thought was super duper cool in
ages past when we were younger, and now we look
back and think, I don't know if that was cool.

Speaker 4 (12:06):
Well, like, for example, when we were all lads of
a certain age, things like chain wallets and Jinko pants
were considered cool, and then they kind of fell out
of fashion and it became one of those fashion choices
that was sort of looked at as sort of like absurd.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
But guess what, y'all hugely.

Speaker 4 (12:25):
Back in a massive, no pun intended way with the kids.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
I was gonna say, don't get our pal Tennessee started
on Jinkos. Dylan and I a while back. I can
remember how long ago it was we actively tried to
buy Jicos, but it was after the pendulum swung back
and they were too expensive totally.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
And like, for example, like things like bands like bands.
For example, Steely Dan used to be considered like the
music of the Man, the Squares or whatever. Now Steely
Dan has been reassessed and there are tons of young
hit bands. Their primary influences Steve Steely Dan and dear
friend of the show Frank Mailhern has a theory that
that's on the way to happening with the Dave Matthews band.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Oh I see it, Yeah, Oh I hope. So what
do you think about? What do you think about that?

Speaker 4 (13:13):
I'm going to have to personally reassess this myself exactly
do it?

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Do it? Go back to Bartender.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
But that's the funny. Things were originally the dopiest thing
you could possibly wear, and then day all of a
sudden started getting co opted by like fashion brands and
like influencers and stuff. Or Carhart, which once was like
a workman's kind of outfit has been completely co opted
by fashion types. And it's just so fascinating to look

(13:41):
at all this stuff on a long enough timeline.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah, you can see it with authors as well, like
Stephen King, who has swung back and forth in critical perception.
That goes back to the I love that we're bringing
crocs back up again, because I think we'll return to
them a third time as we get deeper here. It's
it's strange because maybe through this lends it's best for

(14:03):
us to start defining cool by saying it's the quality
of a person placer thing that is compatible with admirable
social norms, which is a very accurate, but very uncool
way to define it or to phrase it. And because
the reason it feels uncool to define it that way
is because it inherently argues that we're all much more

(14:25):
susceptible to social pressures and influences than we'd like to think.
You know, human nature often seems to be a battle
between wanting to be that maverick, wanting to stand out,
to be noticed, to be praised, to be respected, while
at the same time yearning to be accepted, yearning to
somehow fit in.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, well, I mean, think about it, guys. We're three
guys in our forties now. Think about what it was
when you're a kid in middle school, in high school,
especially up until the age of like twenty three, let's say,
which is one of the markers that's used in a
lot of these studies and a lot of the way
people talk about this, that need to fit in just

(15:06):
enough so you're not going to get picked on, that
need to be a part of the crowd, but you
want to be an individual too. That whole thing is
so strong and continues to be strong and has always been,
i would say, extremely strong, because you just you want
to be yourself in an individual but you don't want
to stick out enough so that the other kids are
going to throw.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
Stuff at you. And does that vary culture by culture?
Right the threshold? It does? There? That's the question, right,
It's such a stellar observation. And we know that if
we understand that internal conflict, and we know that the
concept of coolness is so fluid, ephemeral, changeable, then how
on earth can a person become cool in general? How

(15:48):
can we define that? Well, the smaller you go, the
more specific our definition can become. You go to any
social group, doesn't matter what they're doing on a granular level,
and you will quickly identify modes of communication, recreation, ideological
concepts that qualify as cool in that group, and sometimes
they're defined by exclusivity. Right, Being cool within this group

(16:12):
includes a rejection of norms from outside groups, a way
to differentiate us from them. I think I haven't seen
this film in so long, but it makes me think
of childhood bully clicks like the Mean Girls for instance,
if you guys remember that one with their Henchmen hench people, Yeah,
with the Hinchfolk. And even on very small groups, right,

(16:36):
you can see bullying and pressure and attempts to define
coolness or certain religious orders. Right. That can be really
interesting in this milieu because it can be cool to
follow the rules, right, which sounds pretty uncool if you're
a high schooler.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
Well, and speaking of historical kind of assessment, like, I'm
always really fascinating by folks that in their time were
completely uncool or considered outliers, or considered like almost enemies
of the state, even like Let's Lose Jesus is a
good example. But then over time they're reassessed and they
become an era defining presence of what cool is. There's

(17:19):
actually a King Missile song called Jesus was way cool.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Do check that out. It's it's very appropriate for today's episode.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Well, because societies kind of get in ruts, I would say,
over time, to where the normal thing is totally cool
with everybody in the moment, but then you look back,
he you go, oh, wow, we really messed that up,
didn't we. But you don't get that until you've been
through something, which is I think to me, guys, as
we record this on the first day back to school

(17:46):
after summer of twenty twenty five, it feels like that
kind of thing is happening a lot when you look
at just some of the things I know, at least
my son's friend group is into and some of the
some of the things that are considered cool are just
going to be fully rejected in a couple of years.
It's only gonna take a couple of years.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, there's an argument that, you know, the cadence of
the cycle or the frequency of the cycle is decreasing, right,
And there are some pretty astonishing social observations about that
and investigations and studies. With the idea of religious orders,
you would aim to be the most read up on

(18:29):
spiritual teachings leaving closest to the accepted norms of behavior
and morality, mentioning that because it could lead to a
ton of problems. Maybe a story for another evening. But
after we've scoped it specifically, what happens when we scope
out and see the forest for the trees, as it were.
If we put aside the relatively easy task of determining

(18:51):
coolness for specific groups, could we scientifically figure out coolness
in general? Could we use that knowledge to improve our
own social standing? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (19:06):
And what will we be able to see when someone's
trying to convince us that something is cool?

Speaker 3 (19:11):
And what we learn the difference between cool and good.
We're going to pause for word from our sponsors. Will
dive in years where it gets crazy? Uh? Yeah, maybe
maybe you can scientifically define coolness. You know, in academia

(19:33):
we often joke there's a study for everything. This is
no exception. A recent study came out called cool People,
which is a cool name for a study of odd Okay,
all right, I'll think study names can be so long
by less.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
Cool than a study about this episode inherently is the
least cool thing we've ever done.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
But I am here for it, y'all. So this is
in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, and it's by three
marketing professors, Todd Pezudi, Caleb Warren, and JINGJ. Chit. They
set out to quantify exactly what it means to be
a cool person. And to your point, Noel, yes, You
could argue that's chasing cool, and you could argue that
makes it uncool inherently, but it is fascinating they wanted to.

(20:22):
They sat down, They said, Okay, we want to see
whether it's possible to figure out whether there are specific
universal personality traits to fighting coolness, whether they're constant across
human culture, or whether instead they vary place to place.
And even more intriguing, they asked, is being a cool
person the same thing as being a good person, which

(20:44):
I think we'll all be interested to explore. Maybe first
we pop under the hood and see how they even
started working this out.

Speaker 4 (20:52):
So the professors realized a couple things real quick. They're
getting too specific with your stuff, possessions, material goods, your
physical appearance would not be particularly helpful since those traits
can widely vary across different civilizations. So instead they chose
to look into personality traits and values.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah, and let's go to Todd Pezudi. He explains this
in a great, great article in The Conversation and several
other interviews that you can find online, and he said
specifically this, He said, quote, we asked nearly six thousand
people from twelve countries to think of someone they personally

(21:37):
knew who was cool, not cool, good, or not good,
and then we asked them to describe that person's traits
and values using validated psychological measures, which, to be is
funny because this is not how it happened. But I'm
imagining cold calls like how here we will get cold

(21:58):
calls for surveys, especially around election time. I'm imagining one
of the research assistants just randomly finding the phone number
of someone in China or South Africa and say, Hi,
would you can you think of a person that you
would describe as cool, not cool, good, or not good?

Speaker 4 (22:17):
Call me with that question all day long to stop
asking to buy my house over.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Oh yeah, it's a list? Did I get on? And
so they spent These guys spent more than five years
digging into this twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two, which
means they worked through the outbreak of the COVID pandemic.
It was very difficult at times right to gather the data. Therefore,

(22:45):
they spoke to folks from well thirteen places but twelve
countries the US, Australia, Germany, South Africa, Spain, India, Turkey, Mexico, Nigeria,
South Korea, China, Chile, and Hong Kong. Hong Kong was
kind of bracketed off as its own thing, but they
didn't want to get in trouble with China. So twelve countries,

(23:07):
thirteen cultural regions, and.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
These are very very different places, which is a great
thing for this study, right, You're not going to have
a ton of bias simply for one culture that is
deciding what cool is that they were trying to find
what are the commonalities between all of these different places,
with all the different humans and the different traditions. Who
what is cool? I love this idea.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
It's a cool idea. Like you were saying, Matt, it's
no secret that these are all incredibly unique places. And
each of these places, indeed is large enough to have
its own variety of distinct and sometimes contradicting social groups.
India is the world's most populous, crowded country. The United
States up until recently, was one of the world's top

(23:53):
exporters of culture of coolness. Right, and so it's completely possible.
They said that coolness may be way different in one
place than it is in another, meaning that what makes
you cool as heck in Spain may not be making
you a cool person in Mexico even with the common language.

(24:16):
So they said, this is completely possible. The coolness varies,
except it isn't. Boy howdy, these folks came across a
real bag of behavioral badgers.

Speaker 4 (24:26):
Give us the straight poop Man, the straight poop.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Yes. Sorry, you guys still got in my head with
that conversation about Josh Clark in Healthy Poops. Oh yeah,
a rope, yes right, yes, yes, I was listening back
to that episode and there's a moment where I finally
realized what shooting ropes means.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
Oh yeah, we test it so it's a spider Man.
So Spider Man does.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
That's what Spider Man does. So these guys are leaning
on the previous research, which is white, is quite robust.
There's a lot of stuff out there about how to
quantify or I guess, how to really diagram and understand
personalities what makes people tick. Of course, social sciences are

(25:16):
always going to be imperfect. Everybody admits that, but it
is worthwhile and you could say mission critical research. So
they leveraged something called the Big Five personality trait model.
It's a fun name, and that was one of their
like the Bedrock Foundations for how they started constructing these questions.

Speaker 4 (25:37):
For sure, and they found that time and time again,
across various demographics and cultures, that everyone around the world
could agree on six key factors that make a person cool.
And these were folks who are extroverted, hedonistic, adventurous, open, powerful,
and autonomous. And y'all, I mean at the end of

(26:00):
the day that a lot of this conversation around the
idea of cool just kind of involves like living your
life and just sort of taking things as it comes
and learning and having your eyes open to experience. And
aside from the hedonistic bit, a lot of this really
tracks for me.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, the hedonistic bit matches up perfectly with Brat and
Brat Summer.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
That's true.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
But we all agreed off Mike that there's something to
be said about some of these things feeling not entirely cool,
and that there's a difference between something that is genuinely,
you know, cool and something that is maybe a bit
of a flash in the pan, or a bit of
a fad or a trend.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Or a bit manufactured from the top down, a bit
or satz an insincere industry plants, right, right, So let's
walk through these real quick extrovert, are you outgoing? Do
you tend to start conversations? This doesn't just mean being loud.
It also means that when you and age with people,
you are also actively listening to what they have to say.

(27:05):
You're not just talking at them about yourself or the
information you want to convey. You're making a communal space
of equal exchange. Hugely important.

Speaker 4 (27:14):
This hedonistic part is fascinating to me because you point
out Ben in the outline that the idea does often
get a bad rap. You know, we think of debauchery
and unchecked, unhinged partying, but that does not necessarily enter
into this particular way of looking at the concept of
the personality trade.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah, hedonistic hedonism as a concept, just as a word,
even it gets a bad rap, as you said, Noel,
especially when America goes through one of its cyclical puritanical tantrums.
But I love that you're pointing out hedonistic doesn't mean
this person is out banging everybody you're constantly partying. It
means instead holding a deep appreciation for pleasurable things and

(27:56):
seeking them out. So anything that you enjoy, you know
it can be an act of hedonism, and cool people
openly and enthusiastically enjoy stuff. They also effectively communicate that
enjoyment to others they share it. So a cool person
doesn't just say, yeah, you know, I guess poetry is
okay if they like poetry. Instead, they'll take it a

(28:18):
step further. They'll say, I love poetry. Here is a
specific poem I think you will enjoy as well. They
include you in the hedonism.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Well, they want to know about your appreciation of it,
rather than just telling you about their appreciation of it.

Speaker 4 (28:32):
Well, they love it so much that they want to
share it with others. And I think we could all
argue that there's a fine line between that type of
enthusiasm and someone who to know it all and constantly
telling people what they should or should not like. And
I think we also know that that is there's no
quicker way to turn somebody off from something than taking
that approach.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, yucking and young and telling people what they don't
like is what they should not like is the uncool
thing and spable.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
It's the worst. And I know I've known people that
I think we all have throughout our lives, and often
it is the hallmark of maybe someone who's a little
younger and not fully set in their confidence, and they
feel the need to couch everything with negativity because it's.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
An ego driven thing.

Speaker 4 (29:15):
It's a way of saying I am better because I
know that this other thing sucks.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
But as you get a little older.

Speaker 4 (29:22):
I feel at least I'm less interested in telling people
what isn't good, and I'm more interested in telling people
what I'm excited about if something comes up that I
think they would very much enjoy.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yeah, I like sharing stuff. I think I hope everybody does,
sharing specific things based on what you have learned about
a person, because to be one of the coolest things
is learning, right, learning from people, hearing them out. What
do you think? What do you oh? You like I've
sent no weird questions about since because you know more

(29:54):
about it. You know way more about it than I do.
And I like to learn stuff. And you're really I
want to thank you for being so generous with your
time and your acumen when I'm like, hey, what is this?
How does this work?

Speaker 4 (30:07):
Because you know, I'm not as much of a reader
as I would like to be, and it's something that
I want to be more of. So when it comes
to asking for recommendations on books or poetry or things
like that, I turn to you because this is something
that you are incredibly passionate about and that you're also
very generous about with. You know your knowledge and your sharing,
and you know me. Therefore, I know that your recommendations

(30:29):
are going to land, and they always do.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
James Joyce Love Letters, One Little Party, fart Ones, and
I like turtles. Yeah, I like Tootles now.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
But Matt, you like video games, culture. There's so many
things that you're into that I'm not nearly as into,
and I'm always surprised and excited to learn things that
you're passionate about, because nine times out of ten I'm
going to find something in those things that's going to
do it for me.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Boom. Yeah. I would also say that Matt, in particular,
I have seen you have these amazing, in depth conversations
with people just from off the street. No, I'm not
making a joke.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
I'll look at the Two Daniels.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Sorry about that, Yes, Dylan sent us the Tale of
Two Daniels. There's Daniel and then there's the cooler Daniels.
The cooler Daniel has sunglasses. So the cooler Daniel, therefore,
in this meme would be seen to be more adventurous.
That's a defining trait. Cool people do stuff. They take risks,
they travel to new places, they pick up new hobbies.

(31:32):
If you have an extra ticket to something like say
a Flamenco show, random example, then a cool person is
more likely than average to get an invitation from you
and say, what's the Flamaco Yeah, never mind, yeah, I'll go. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
Cool and cool people do their homework too. I mean
they want to fully entrench themselves in a culture. When
they're traveling. They want to find the off the beaten
path stuff. Ben, you're you can't wait till I get
to go to Japan because I'm going to have such
a wealth of record mandations from you and your time
spent there.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
But like, cool people are great traveling buddies. Yeah, hopefully,
hopefully we can all travel together. Everyone right to the
accounting department. We need to make not.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
To be on the high seas together, which is funny
and weird and then exciting.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Join us on the Virgin Voyages True crime cruise this October.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
October tenth through the fifteenth. We'll be hanging out with
our pals, betrayal, and buried bones. We also want to
thank a very kind fellow conspiracy realist who wrote in
and proposed an alternative pun not just conspira cruise, but
a cruise spiracy. I can't believe we missed that one, though,
it's pretty well done. So this leads us to this

(32:43):
idea of being adventurous and embracing stuff. It leads us
to the idea of openness. These are very closely related. Right.
Openness in this study measures creativity, curiosity, willingness to entertain
new ideas. The world says hear me out, the cool
person says, heck, yeah, hit me. Well.

Speaker 4 (33:03):
I think when the term like square gets thrown around,
if anybody still says that, because it's clearly the fifties,
it usually refers to closed mindedness. Someone that's not willing
to listen. There's someone that's not willing to open themselves
up because there's a certain sense of I know everything already,
and that's inherently uncool.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
It is.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah, so the dude is very very cool. Dude open.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
That guy's super open. And also, you know, to that point,
there's this idea of openness as in evaluating new information
or a thought at its objective level, right, like avoiding
the tendency to say I don't I already don't like

(33:48):
this person, so I'm going to reject their idea because
of where it comes from. Open people are far less
likely to do that, and that's something that anybody can
struggle with. Okay, the next trait is, oh, guys, this
one's a bit of a sticky wicket, but it is
one of the six key traits of being cool. It's

(34:09):
being powerful. I'm on the phone this one through me. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
No, I'm fully on board with hedonism since you drilled
down into it a bit. It's more like kind of
a kingly uh, what's the word, like Falstaffian kind of love,
jois de vive or whatever. But power, be merry. Powerful
is sticky, for sure, because we know that power, absolute
power corrupts absolutely maybe not every time. There are certainly magnanimous,

(34:37):
powerful folks out there, But it's tricky and I don't
know that I necessarily agree that this is a requirement,
but I guess it also figures into the next one,
which is autonomy. If you have power, you're able to
self direct your destiny and share that with others.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
And I think this one is directly linked with that
concept of autonomy, because to me, someone who is cool
isn't just doing what they're told by somebody else. They
have the ability to decide what they're going to do.
Like it. Theoretically, That's what I think this is getting
at somebody who has the power to go and do
what they want. Because if you want to be adventurous

(35:13):
and open and you want to view the world in
these ways and seek hedonism in certain ways and be extroverted,
you have to Again, I think autonomy ends up being
probably the most powerful thing that's on here, and I
think powerful is directly linked to it.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
Yeah, this is all a Venn diagram, right, because powerful
in this sense, in a positive sense, it means do
you have sway and influence in your social groups? Do
you have a meaningful place in those dynamics, and importantly,
do you appear to be fair in those dealings? Do
you have the riz as well? This directly, as we

(35:54):
were saying, leads that final trait also know to your
point about power past a certain threshold leading to non
ideal behaviors. It reminds us everyone should check out our
previous episode. Does being wealthy make you a bad.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
Person, absolutely, And it's a tricky question, and that's a
philosophical question.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
It is. But there's a great there's another study about
playing Monopoly that I think we all had a lot
of gallows humor fun with you guys. Remember that one.
I don't know if I do, remind me.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, what was the monopoly thing?

Speaker 3 (36:26):
That's the one where they gave Okay, so they give people.
They take these students. I'll be vague here, just pick somebody.
They take the students, and they have one group of
students who plays Monopoly the regular way, but some of
the other players are given a bunch of advantages. They
get to roll more die each time, more dice, whatever

(36:48):
you prefer. They start off with more money, and then
they have an interview at the end. Spoiler Monopoly is
a broken game. And at the end of that game session,
they asked the people who won, where all the folks
with the advantages? They said, do you think you won
because of all the advantages you have? And the majority

(37:09):
of them said, I mean, I could see that, but
not really. I'm just terrific at monopoly. I'm just really
good at it. But that's not the real that's not
the real trick. The real trick was when people left
that survey, they had to stand in a waiting room alone.
And in this waiting room there's a counter with a

(37:29):
little glass jar of candy on it and a little
sign that says, you know, like this candy is only
for kids, or something like this. I may be paraphrasing.
The people who got the head startup monopoly and one
were for some reason far more likely to just grab
a handful of candy because they thought no one was there.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
Hmm. So that's almost like a that's isn't that a
little bit amoral? Like the idea of trying to put
one over on you know, the rules.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
The idea, yeah, was that their encounter, brief and fictional
as it was, as being a one percenter of monopoly,
had changed their behavior to be less moral.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Don't I'm a winner?

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Right? These kids could get more candy somewhere else.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
But Ben, that does also kind of bring up a
question around this notion of power past a certain threshold,
like are you able to be quote unquote success and
maintain or increase that power without stomping on the little guys,
you know, without like being a villain.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
It really depends upon, arguably the system in which you live.
You know what that system incentivizes or rewards, and the
degree of autonomy you can possess within a given system.
Do you follow your own motivations an agency, irrespective of norms, beliefs,
and expectations of others? Can you resist being a blind

(38:56):
follower while also not violating the social compact? What we
mean is, can you be your own person without also
being seen as rude, hostile, petty, dismissive, so on, all
the all the bad loser.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Stuff, the brat stuff.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Is that the brat stuff? Yes?

Speaker 5 (39:18):
Yeah, I mean okay, Because if we take these six
traits together, right, guys, it feels pretty self affirming to
hear these concepts and think.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Oh yeah, holy belowdie, that's me. There's nothing wrong with
having that observation or that feeling, because it's almost certain
that every single person has exhibited these traits to one
degree or another at some point, because, let's face it,
otherwise the world would be full of boring apples. I

(39:49):
just wanted to use the phrase boring apples. I love
it and I don't love it. Do you love ad breaks? Okay?
I get the job done. Well, we've got some news
for you and us. We're back. So you guys told me.

(40:11):
It feels like the real argument is that people we
think are cool are instead more likely to exhibit these
traits for longer stretches, perhaps to a greater degree.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, why do we why do we hold let's say,
certain actors who are now in their seventies, like as
being some of the coolest people on the planet, like
you know, who hold a lot of these traits?

Speaker 3 (40:36):
And why? Is it?

Speaker 4 (40:36):
Definitely James Dean, the one that we always go back to.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, but he didn't have a cause, right, No way,
is that the right note?

Speaker 3 (40:43):
That's the right one?

Speaker 4 (40:43):
Yeah, okay, right, the jacket though, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Well, I'm imagining like Bill Murray or some of these
folks that just, you know, they appear they have that
coolness thing, that thing they're like just out doing things
and just being themselves. Man, that guy's just himself. I
just see that because they've been doing it for so long,
perhaps as what we're talking about here.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Aldi Reeves is another, Yeah, example that I think would
line up with that.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
There is there's this other word, an Italian phrase that
comes from the sixteenth century or a term I guess
that comes from the sixteenth century that describes cool in
a way that I think almost some some of this
stuff up. It's it's spresa toura and I'd never heard
of that before.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
S p r e z z a t u r a.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
And this was used to describe some dude. I I
have no idea who this person is, Baldassare Castiglioni. And
this is in fifteen twenty eight, and it's described as
quote a certain nonchalance to conceal all art and to
make what one does or say appear to be without effort.
That makes sense to me, right when you when you

(41:53):
see someone cool, it says though they're not having to
do anything, and yet they're doing everything well.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
An Italian cool is still very much a hallmark of
cool in terms of fashion, in terms of that effortless style.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
Right. Yeah, It's part of why Dylan the Tennessee pal
is so cool. It's part of why our friend Alex
Williams is so cool. Let's put you on the spot, Dylan.
But I think you've got that. What's that Italian where
you just taught us about spread spread? This is this

(42:25):
is also leading into something else. The James Dean example
is interesting because in this study they found that people
who saw photographs of James Dean rated him less cool
when there was a photo of him not smiling, But
if he's smiling a little, he seems more cool. It's
it's strange because it seems like there's a note of

(42:48):
positivity in some cultures that's inherent to the idea of cool.
But to your point, Matt, it goes it reminds me
of that insult that I think is more common in Australia,
maybe calling someone a try hard they're putting in too
much effort and that makes it uncool. I don't know,
Like there's also this idea of being cool also shows

(43:12):
a tendency to avoid kind of putting others down in
a search for power or validation, like you were mentioning earlier, Nol.
And the tricky part is humans still don't understand themselves,
so the science of personality is still a very messy
bowl of ven diagram spaghetti. That leads to the other question,
the one I think. I don't know about you, guys,

(43:34):
but I'm still kind of grappling with is being cool
the same thing as being good.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
No, they found that it's not. It's linked though, right,
it's linked. But yeah, good is very interesting. Generosity is
something that was wondering like how it was seen in
this study because I've always you know, personally, I've always
imagined that as being a good like perhaps the good
trait being generous with one's time and every thing. Does

(44:02):
that fall in here anywhere in the study.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Yeah, I think it's I think to your point, it's
wrapped up in there with stuff like being conscientious, uh,
being the traits they found that were most associated with
being good. We're being kind, calm, traditional, secure, and conscientious.
But I feel like generosity is wrapped up in being

(44:26):
conscientious and kind. And look, yes, it is correct. They
found that cool and good are they have overlap, but
they are not the same thing. And one of the
best examples going back to fictional characters, think of some
of your favorite characters from fiction, the judge from Blood
Meritio or Anton Sugar from No Country from Old Men.

(44:48):
Anton is cool as but it is by no means good.

Speaker 4 (44:51):
Well, yeah, but that's funny.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
You should say that man.

Speaker 4 (44:53):
I would argue that he's more cool in that old
school sense, and that he is collected and emotionless and
disp passionate. But that haircut not cool man, not cool.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
But that coin toss conversation, that's like a short film. All.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
Oh, it's fantastic, no, no question about it. You're gonna
see this kind of thing in a lot of Cohen
Brothers villains. They have a certain code or a certain
like because again, part of being cool is like being
your own thing and not being at the mercy of
trends and the whims of society. And you're gonna see
a lot of that in Coen Brothers characters. Villains particularly,
think that's a great point.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
Well, hey, Darth Vader absolutely slaps, but it would kind
of suck to hang out with him. Yeah hmm.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
What about Johnny Cage as portrayed by Carl Urban in
Mortal Kombat too, that's about to come out.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
I just like, yeah, he is. It's the trailer is
all about him. By the way, we might be looking
to make characters. That's a new Street Fighter movie that's
in development.

Speaker 4 (45:50):
The cast is odd, But Johnny Cage is cool.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
If Nicholas Cage is cool.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
You see, Butcher is one of the coolest characters I've
ever seen.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
So I mean, don't mess with his dog. Uh yeah.
This list goes on and on, and especially here in
the West, we love an anti hero, right, like the butcher,
or like Boba Fette, or like the Mandalorian. Right. More recently,
this study seems and related studies that's built upon, seem
to validate the idea that there is this big difference

(46:22):
some cool traits like extraversion, hedonism, and actually autonomy. We're
not necessarily seen as good across the world. Like Anton
in No Country for Old Men is highly autonomous. He's
also highly not a good person, which is a scientific
term we just made up. You are being highly not

(46:44):
a good person right now.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Dog, Well, he is a cool guy because he does
not look at explosions.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
Right, That is that is one of the that's one
of the traits. He's also a bad guy because he
drinks milk on camera. True, Yeah, classic trope.

Speaker 4 (46:59):
If I'm mistake with talked about this, there's a certain
like connection to like not having had the love of
a mother that is sort of evidenced by this love
of drinking milk.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
I've read that, I've read some similar analysis about that,
and I could totally see it happening I also wonder,
I don't know, it'd be great to get like Jordan
Peel and Quentin Tarantino and the Cohen's in a room
together and just say, all right, guys, what's up with
your milk villains and just see what they have to say.
They would have a great conversation too, but it would

(47:33):
be like lightning striking over and over.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Little oil.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
Put fetish talk into the mix, and it's a party.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
The mcfoils also, yeah, oh yeah, is there a difference
between warm milk? Oh? My gosh. Anyway, Look, it seems
that there is a stable or agreement about what makes
someone cool across the planet, but cultures do have some
variance in the level of importance they assign to one
trait or another. And this is where we see interesting

(48:02):
exceptions like maybe Nigeria is a great place to start.

Speaker 4 (48:06):
Nigeria was the only country where autonomy didn't really factor
in as far as cool.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
Was concerned or uncool.

Speaker 4 (48:15):
In fact, Puzudi and his team concluded that this meant
that individuality overall wasn't seen as cool. And I would
also be interested in seeing how, you know, a study
like this would react to communist countries.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
M H. Yeah, or anything with more collectivist social DNA, right,
because we you know, like that proverb that we mentioned
pretty often in the recent past, you can argue that
a lot of traditional cultures in that part of the
world are much more group oriented. Right. It'd also be
interesting to see this study in Japan, right, another culture

(48:53):
that places great value on the collective good and homogeneity.
It's interesting, right, And we have to be the researchers
here do a phenomenal job of not falling into like
stereotypes or other ring. They're just asking the questions and saying, well,
can we connect a dot here? And if so, what
does that mean? South African respondents believe that cool was

(49:17):
incredibly distinct from good. Cool guys are not necessarily the
good guys in South Africa according to this study. I
guess shout out to Dianetward, but uh, I don't know.
Are they cool anymore?

Speaker 4 (49:31):
I don't know, man, They had some cancelation terrible stuff. Yeah,
not good, like some of the way they were treating
I believe children, children, that's.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
Right, yes, what yeah, yeah, that legal guardians mistreating children.
Allegations of sexual abuse.

Speaker 4 (49:48):
Now we haven't followed up on this. There may have
been updates, but that is what I remember from a
few years back.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Yeah, and in South Africa, being hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, and
autonomous was seen as much much, much more cool than good,
which indicates the researchers that those traits are more likely
to be seen as not generally good in that culture.
We can't trust powerful people are hedonistic people. Adventuroust people

(50:14):
are dangerous to know, Autonomous people are rule breakers, that
kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
It's an interesting question though, I mean this idea of
like that then diagram overlap between cool and good.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
I think it all.

Speaker 4 (50:26):
Depends on the metric with which you use to gauge coolness.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
Right, Yeah, how you frame the question right, how you
define this somewhat undefinable thing. And there are obviously important
points about the study that the researchers readily admit. They say, yes,
we're using tons of proven personality based metrics and studies
of the past, we're looking deep into earlier research in

(50:53):
the field of psychology, field of sociology. But ultimately we
are asking people to self report their own opinions. Right,
And we're also not asking all the let's check the
world clock here, We're not asking all the eight point
two three eight billion people on the planet for their

(51:14):
own take, you know what I mean. So six thousand
people over five years is a lot, and it's very
thorough research, but it's not everybody, so they're very conscious
of that.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
M he guys, I just got a flash of that
Detroit's episode with about the hogs, about the motorcycles. You
remember this?

Speaker 4 (51:35):
Oh, I need to dig into that show more. I've
only seen the first like maybe three episodes.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
It's so great.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Amazing actor who just passed, isn't it? From the Cosby Show,
Malcolm Toabor Morning? Thank you for Jillian. Yeah, he was
in that episode and do.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
You remember that episode actually, now that you mentioned that's
one of the ones I.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Saw, I'm just I'm thinking of his character and he's
considered by the main characters of that show as being
so cool because he rides a motorcycle. He can just
go wherever he wants and go fly to Dubai when
he wants to. He doesn't have to work all the time.
And it's making me think about these concepts of cool
and whether or not it is or if you guys
think it is linked to wealth, because it feels like

(52:12):
a lot of these attributes don't aren't necessarily like directly,
you don't have to be wealthy to have them. But
if you are wealthy and you have enough income or
enough liquid assets to just go do what you want
to do at all times and be open and happy
and all of these things.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
Jet setting is a term that gets thrown around a
lot associated with that kind of cool, right.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Maybe, I guess I just don't know if that in
this way we think society is linking that here because
it does feel like it might be to me. And
then I think about someone who is so focused on
attempting to better their where they stand from a wealth perspective,
and how it would be really hard to hold a
lot of these attributes just on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Right, Yeah, No, I think that's very valid because money
provides agency, and previous studies have proven that up to
a certain income threshold, which would have to adjust for inflation,
but it used to be like something like seventy thousand
dollars plus. Up to a certain level of income in
the US, money does make you happier because it makes

(53:17):
your life much easier, and it also reminds me of
Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You get to a certain degree.
It's not going to automatically make you cool, but it's
going to give you agency to engage with more of
those behaviors. When you're not struggling to simply survive, then
you do have the ability or again the agency to

(53:39):
be more open or to say, yeah, I'll go with
you to that Flamenco show because I don't, in fact,
work three jobs and have four kids that I'm trying
to put through college one day.

Speaker 4 (53:48):
Now, being cool is certainly a luxury, one could argue.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
I think it's accurate, you know.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
I mean, it's not to say that you can't work
a straight job and have kids and still be open
and a thoughtful listener interested. Those decks do not disappear,
but in the full package. If that's sort of like
how you define yourself, it is, it's not always easy
to balance all of those things.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
Well, let me put in a counterfactual real quick. As
we're exploring this, remember the episode Mac Day from Always
Sunny in Philadelphia. Mac's cousin is the coolest guy who's
ever been on the show, and he's not wealthy. He's
just more accepting of himself. But he does all the
cool things and has the vibe that Mac is desperately

(54:32):
wanted his entire life, and he is not. You know again,
he is not by any means a man of means.
That's weird, but we'll keep it all right. We're working
live and I think we see that there's a multi
dimensional thing to play here.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right, because it is possible
to look cool and act cool without those things. It just,
for some reason, seems to help a lot when you've
just got money to throw round. It makes me think
of that, Oh guys, you're gonna have to help me.
The mackelmore song about going to.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
The thrift store pops some tags.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yes, but that concept of appearing you can appear as
cool as you want to be and you don't have
to have a bunch of money to do it, which,
you know, those kinds of cultural concepts that bleed in
and then just you know, then, for at least a
moment in time, it's thought, oh wait, it's not cool
to actually spend a crap ton of money on what
I'm wearing. And it just makes me wonder how that

(55:30):
ebb and flow actually occurs over time, with how much
influenced wealth actually has on the concept of what cool is.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Yeah, it didn't end up well for the French royalty.

Speaker 4 (55:40):
Mm oh, exactly, Well, let the meet cake or no,
which I think it's no. But I'll tell you I
think the coolest person in Hollywood is is Keanu Reeves
because he has that effortless cool. He plays in a
band because he loves it, not because it makes him
a bunch of money. He gives a lot of his
earnings to charity. He apparently just lives in a smallish

(56:02):
kind of modest house and doesn't throw his money around
in any kind of self aggrandizing way. I would argue
that he exudes every one of these things. I'll say,
someone that's experienced personal tragedy and has risen to the
occasion and is just kind of an inspiring person.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Well, let's talk about Amy Poehler going on a podcast
talking about her CPAP machine like it's not a big deal,
what a.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
Or Christina Applegate who also has a podcast talking about
her struggles in a very human in erudite way. We
know from these studies that there are many more questions ahead,
but from what we can see here, their two primary
arguments are that the definition of kool has not just changed,

(56:47):
but has become more consistent across culture. And then there
are other argument is that being cool does not necessarily
make one good, and they've they've made really solid arguments
for both of these ideas. Part of why cool has
apparently become a little more consistent across human civilization is,
I would argue, due to the rise of global communication,

(57:10):
you are encountering more things that you may not have
encountered in ages past, and people are starting to kind
of coalesce toward a global consensus of cool, which means
it'll evolve over time.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
Well, one thing that kind of buns we talked about
COVID earlier and how that study was kind of taken
during COVID, and I think it's a pretty easy argument
to make that COVID also reshuffled the deck as far
as what is cool, because like so much of the
younger current generation, it's defining a lot of these things
came up during COVID, So a lot of Internet memei,
absurdist kind of things and slang and stuff. A lot

(57:44):
of that stuff was birthed kind of during COVID. But
one thing that I think is unfortunate in that generation,
and maybe this is common in past generations as well.
Is this sense of cringe, this sense of like trying
isn't cool. Like showing that you're excited about something isn't cool.
That like putting yourself out on a limb to follow
your dreams isn't cool. There's this wonderful poet, an author

(58:07):
named Ocean Wong who you may be familiar with. I
saw a really excellent internet video that they did, recent
internet video. I'm talking about this very thing, and how
it's with their students. They teach that they're constantly running
into the sense of they don't want to be perceived
as earnest, they don't want to be perceived as trying.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
And I think that sucks. Yeah, especially because enthusiasm is contagious, right.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
Like so is negativity, and so is this like guarded
sense of I don't want to be seen is caring
about stuff?

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Yeah, personality and vibe is contagious. This leads us to
another question that is probably on the mind of several
of us listening tonight. How can I be cool? All right,
here's the skinny on it. The specifics are going to
differ depending on your own social groups right like whatever,
uniform ideology, et cetera. But you and everyone else you

(59:01):
know has definitely exercised these quote unquote cool personality traits
more than what and the without sounding too hallmarky or
pathetic or whatever. One great first step is in learning
to be cool is learning to be cool with and
to yourself and being autonomous enough to avoid compromising that.
It reminds Look, it reminds me of this excellent poem

(59:24):
called If by Richard Kipling. If you haven't had a
chance to read it, please do so, and we'd love
to hear similar stuff you enjoy, similar poems in the
same vein. Have you guys read that poem?

Speaker 4 (59:36):
If?

Speaker 2 (59:36):
I feel like at this cool guy sharing his poetry.
No earlier.

Speaker 4 (59:43):
We've talked about this. It's come up because it is.
I think it's very applicable in a lot of situations.
I do recall it being such.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
It's a great poem, especially with what we're talking about now,
And we'd we'd love to hear more stuff along that
vein that you enjoy. And another question, and tell me
what you guys think about this? What about figuring out
what you like to see in other people? Asking yourself
what makes you like spending time around them, and then
ask yourself how you can be the kind of person

(01:00:13):
that you would want to hang out with. I think
that's the kind of self peace that's way better than
chasing cool Ben. I think it's related.

Speaker 4 (01:00:22):
But there is also a nineteen sixty eight film starring
Malcolm McDowell called If, and it is about It's almost
got like a Catcher in the Rye kind of vibe
to it. It's sort of about this like group of
prep school students and this notion of like being in
or outside of society and like the norms and what

(01:00:43):
is or is not cool, And it goes in some
dark directions, but it's very very good film. And I
think the title is directly referencing that poem.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
I haven't seen that. I'd love to check that out, man,
thanks for the recommendation. Big Malcolm McDowell fans over here
about today, folks, you could check him out. He's technically
there is an old joke we have he's technically a
co worker of ours.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Yeah yeah. Check out twelve Ghosts.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Yes, check out Twelve Ghosts, which you eped in partnership
with Aaron Manky and Nicholas Takowski, Right, yes, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Check it out, guys. I've got a list of things
that are cool and not cool from Chloe McDonnell writing
for The Guardian.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Well, if Chloe's got it, then let's hear it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
This huge news.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
Chloe is the epitome of cool. Wait, but she's the
one who said la boo boos are no longer cool.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Chloe knows, Chloe knows not cool. Chat GPT pretending not
to be on the pen when you are.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
I guess that's uh. They weight loss stuff and he's
wait less.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Cowboy boots la boo boos, using corporate jargon outside of work,
like saying Q one talking about sleep scores, giant adult
sippy cups LinkedIn Burkin bags and including your Myers Briggs
in your dating bio.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
What about Murkins as cool?

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Man? I have no idea. What does Chloe say about mrs?
What about urs? Need we need to get Chloe on
the horn?

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Or what is murcans? Jerkin all the stuff not as
in Jerkins?

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Yeah, oh god, I don't know what What is cool
being a member of a library, good service anywhere the ROAs.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
This sounds like propaganda, I know, asking questions.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Hey, that's cool. That is definitely one of the coolest
things you can do restaurants where you don't have to
shout at each other to be heard. Uh, something called
coop rocks? Is coop ros Maybe colorful toothbrushes?

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
I don't I don't know what that is. I don't
know about that either.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
Ordering an object to view at the v NA East storehouse.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
What does that mean? Enjoys in with these tooth brushes
and with this VNA know about this on board with
Chloe until I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Not being a TV snob. That's cool using lamps rather
than the big light in any room you're in and
read and being.

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
Okay with aging. I love aging. I think aging kicks ask.
I think this is also first off, thank you Matt,
Thank you Kloyd. I think this also shows us that
there is still a subjective nature to these, especially when
our correspondent there is naming physical objects. Right. That's a

(01:03:30):
case of yucking a yum. Chasing cool never really works.
It is simply a convenient lie corporation serve up to
us every day, and it does serious damage to everyone involved.
I think the key, the real key to coolness is
an internal steady. You don't have to travel to Nepal
to be cool. Right. As a matter of fact, you

(01:03:50):
might sound depending on how you talk about it, might not,
might not make you sound very cool at all. Right,
we have to find our own peace free of other variables.
I don't know. It feels like that's kind of fortune
cookie esque, but it does also feel true. Yeah, man,
cool cool daddy O.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
Just what's that song from West Side Story The Sharks
and the Jets? Be cool boy, Jet, You're a jet
That's what I.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Said, But there's be cool by I forgot that way.
I think wow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
As a fan of musicals, I've heard realize it's coming
back to me. But that's the one song I know
is a fan of musicals. There's so many musicals where
in my head I know maybe three songs from them.

Speaker 4 (01:04:45):
Boy Boy, crazy boy, get cool boy.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Got a rocket in your pocket, keep cooly, cool boy pockets.
It's a gun, I guess.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):
Don't get hot because man, you got some high times ahead,
take it slow and daddy, oh you can it up
and die in bed?

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
All right?

Speaker 4 (01:05:02):
Cool, that's pretty cool to me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Step aside Shakespeare. That's probably the best place to end
this episode the idea of being cool with yourself, and
we wish you luck on your own journey. We do
have to say, oh one last week, the study cool
People is freely available online. There's a lot more detail
to it than we can address this evening, but we
can't say it's incredibly cool of Todd Pezzudi, Caleb Warren

(01:05:27):
and jingj Ched to make it free to the public.
Nice one, Dude's nice. We also think it's supremely cool
that you chose to spend some of your time with
us on this episode. We're looking forward to hearing from you, folks.
Fellow conspiracy realist. What's the coolest thing you've done or witnessed?
If you sent us an email or reached out yet,
because it'd be pretty cool if you did. Breeze it,

(01:05:48):
buzz it easy? Does it?

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
Turn off the juice boy and head on over to
Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on x FKA, Twitter and
on YouTube video Content galor for your perusing enjoyment.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
You can also find that handle on Facebook with our
Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy, on Instagram and TikTok. However,
we're Conspiracy Stuff show.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
You can give us a call. We are one eight
three three stdwy TK. When you call in, let us
know where you get your la boo boos, and also
give yourself a cool nickname, and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you want to send us an email.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back to learn more about weird stuff that was
historically cool and looked super duper strange. Now check out
Ridiculous Histories upcoming episode on Faberge Eggs. In the meantime,
walk out here in the dark, Meet us at the

(01:06:45):
Crossroads Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.